Curd Jürgens: Information from Answers.com

Curd Jürgens

Born	Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens 13 December 1915(1915-12-13) Solln, Bavaria, Germany
Died	18 June 1982 (aged 66) Vienna, Austria
Years active	1935–1982
Spouse(s)	Lulu Basler (1938–1947) Judith Holzmeister (1947–1955) Eva Bartok (1955–1956) Simone Bicheron (1958–1977) Margie Schmitz (1978–1982)

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens (13 December 1915 – 18 June 1982) was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Personal life
4 Partial filmography
5 References
6 External links

Early life

Jürgens was born in the Munich neighbourhood of Solln, Bavaria, Germany. His father was a trader from Hamburg and his mother a French teacher.^[1]^[2] He began his working career as a journalist before becoming an actor at the urging of his actress wife, Louise Basler. He spent much of his early acting career on the stage in Vienna. Critical of the Nazis in his native Germany, in 1944 he was shipped to a concentration camp as a "political unreliable." Jürgens survived and after the war, became an Austrian citizen.

Jürgens' grave in the Zentralfriedhof

Career

Like many multilingual German-speaking actors, Jürgens went on to play soldiers in innumerable war movies. Notable performances in this vein include a meditative officer in the epic The Longest Day. His breakthrough screen role came in Des Teufels General (1955, The Devil's General) and he came to Hollywood following his appearance in the sensational 1956 Roger Vadim directed French film Et Dieu... créa la femme (And God Created Woman) starring Brigitte Bardot. In 1957, Jürgens made his first Hollywood film, The Enemy Below. Jürgens became an international film star. He eventually gained the role of the villain in Roger Moore's favourite James Bond film in The Spy Who Loved Me as Karl Stromberg, a sociopathic industrialist seeking to transform the world into an ocean paradise. His last film appearance was as Maître Legraine, beside Alain Delon and Claude Jade in the Soviet spy-thriller Teheran 43 in 1981. He appeared as General Vladimir in the BBC TV series Smiley's People in 1982.

Curd Jürgens playing Sigmund Freud on the stage at Vienna's Theater in der Josefstadt (1979)

Although he appeared in over 100 films, Jürgens considered himself primarily a stage actor. His last stage appearance was in 1980 as Bassa Selim in Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail touring Japan with with the Vienna State Opera. He also directed a few films with limited success, and wrote screenplays.

Showing his sense of humor, he titled his 1976 autobiography … und kein bißchen weise (And not a Bit Wise).^[3]

Personal life

Jürgens maintained a home in France, but frequently returned to Vienna to perform on stage and that was where he died of a heart attack in 1982. He was interred in the city's Zentralfriedhof. Jürgens had suffered another heart attack several years before. During this he had a near death experience where he claimed he died and went to Hell.

He was a very tall man, standing 1.92 metres (6 ft 4 in) tall.^[4] Brigitte Bardot nicknamed him "the Norman Wardrobe" during their work for Et Dieu… créa la femme.^[5]

Jürgens was married to

Margie Schmitz (21 March 1978 – 18 June 1982) (till his death)
Simone Bicheron (14 September 1958 – 1977) (divorced)
Eva Bartok (13 August 1955 – 1957) (divorced) had 1 daughter Deana born 1957, fathered by Frank Sinatra
Judith Holzmeister (16 October 1947 – 1955) (divorced)
Lulu Basler, actor (15 June 1937 – 8 October 1947) (divorced)

Partial filmography

Königswalzer (Germany), Jürgens' first film (1935)
Wen die Götter lieben (Germany) (1942)
Frauen sind keine Engel (Germany) (1943)
Wiener Mädeln (Germany) (1944)
Der Engel mit der Posaune (Germany) (1948)
Der Schuß durchs Fenster (1950)
1. April 2000 (1952)
The Confession of Ina Kahr (1954)
Des Teufels General (1955)
Die Ratten (1955)
And God Created Woman (1956)
Bitter Victory (1957)
Tamango (1957)
The Enemy Below (1957)
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
Me and the Colonel (1958)
This Happy Feeling (1958)
Ferry to Hong Kong (1959)
The Blue Angel (1959)
Brainwashed (1960)

Portrait by Günter Rittner, 1980

References

^ "Curt Jurgens, War Films' Star" (Free Preview) The New York Times (subscription required)
^ "The Man You'll Love to Hate" (Free Preview) The New York Times (subscription required)
^ Jürgens, Curd. … und kein bißchem weise, Munich, Droemer Knaur (1976). ISBN 3-8588-6054-9.
^ Sill, Oliver (1991) (in German). Zerbrochene Spiegel. Walter de Gruyter. p. 227. ISBN 9783110126976. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=AwIeenju1ZcC&pg=PA227. Retrieved 8 May 2009. quoting Holba et. al. Reclams deutsches Filmlexikon, Stuttgart 1984, p. 181, ISBN 978-3150103296
^ "Curd Jürgens im Porträt" (in German). Hubert Burda www.cinema.de. http://www.cinema.de/kino/stars/star/curd-juergens,1562577,ApplicationStar.html?print=on. Retrieved 8 May 2009.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Curd Jürgens

Persondata
NAME	Jürgens, Curd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Jürgens, Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Film, stage and tv actor
DATE OF BIRTH	1915-12-13
PLACE OF BIRTH	Solln, Bavaria, Germany
DATE OF DEATH	1982-06-18
PLACE OF DEATH	Vienna, Austria

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Curd Jürgens

Biography

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